Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features hip-hop from Dre Dav, drumcentric world-music jams by Muruga-Sikiru-Trance Tribe, noise-rock by Horse Bomb, big-synth music by Orka Veer & Zakoor, and chamber-pop by Cedar Bend.

Dre Dav, Ziggy's 
Prolific Ann Arbor rapper Dre Dav teamed up with several producers for his latest album, which is named after the Ypsi club Ziggy's, the premier spot for live hip-hop (and numerous other genres) in Washtenaw County. There's even a song called "Meet Me at Ziggy's," though it's less a big-upping of the venue and more of a praise song for Dav's own lyrical prowess and his Flight Team crew's party-throwing abilities.

There are eight producers on Ziggy's—Cana the Ruls, Crowned Stevo, Fuego, BlakKat206, Flechette, Myles Jacob, DJ Chopp-A-Lot, and DJ Flippp—who keep the beats and hooks varied. But only two tracks feature guest spots on the mic: "Deuce" features verses by Detroiters Mozzy and Dro Hundred as well as Ypsi's Mike C521 and California vet O.T. Genasis shows out on "Jiggy."

Dav handles everything else lyrically on the 15-track album, and his trademark punctuation "uhhhh-huh!" appears throughout. "2Milli" isn't the Soulja Boy song, but two other songs pay hommage to classic hip-hop cuts: "D-R-E" begins with the same sample as Dr. Dre's "The Next Episode," and "Bust a Move" starts with the sample that built the 1989 Young MC track by the same name.

While his lyrical topics boil down to weed, women, and mic skills for the most part, Dav is an entrepreneur whose hands touch a lot of creative and business ventures in the area. The Washtenaw County videocast The Archive Project, which interviews local artists, debuted with a Dre Dav interview. The chat takes place at Ziggy's and focuses a lot on the importance of community spaces to develop talent as well as giving an overview of Dav's multifaceted creative and charity endeavors, which include fashion, marijuana strains, and toy drives. (If you dig what Dav says, you can listen to his own videocast, the smoke-filled Sunday Sesh.)

Muruga-Sikiru-Trance Tribe, Sacred Boom Groove 
Ann Arbor's Muruga Booker and Nigeria's Sikiru Adepoju joined fellow percussionist Babatunde Olatunji, also from Nigeria, for the 2005 album Circle of Drums. The new Sacred Boom Groove is the spiritual follow-up to that Olatunji-led date, with Booker and Adepoju becoming the leaders and enlisting Manchester, Michigan's Ken Kozora (keyboards, trumpet, electronic percussion) and Alex Terzian (strings, hand drumming), New York's Richie “Shakin” Nagan (shakers, percussion), Southern California's Shakti Ma (vocals), and Oz Music founder Steve Osburn (one-string instrument). (The seemingly unGoogleable Justin Ganesh Bridges appears, too, playing the "merlin"—an instrument I'm not familiar with unless it's this.)

When Kozora starts playing trumpet on "Solar Wind Blues," I thought of Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" approach to music: a blend of the acoustic and the electronic, the modern and the ancient, the modal and rhythmic. The three tracks here clock in at just over 33 minutes, but it's a pretty epic journey in a short time. The music is recorded perfectly, allowing you to hear all the sonic textures bubble and flow as the singing drums resonate deep in your soul. Sacred Boom Groove is soothing, reflective, and gorgeous. Headphones are mandatory. 

Horse Bomb, Live at Ziggy's 2025.01.09 
In December, Ann Arbor noise-improv rockers Horse Bomb put its January 4, 2024, concert at Ziggy's in Ypsilanti up on Bandcamp along with a 2023 gig in Detroit. The quintet is already back with another Ziggy's-recorded album, but this one appears to be only available on CD. The short excerpt on Bandcamp sounds like a fuse being lit for an eventual explosion, but you'll have to track down the disc to hear the full boom.

Orka Veer featuring Zakoor, Into the Void 
Ann Arbor's Orka Veer was inspired to take this stage name because his work "tends to veer from orchestral to synthetic and manipulated acoustic sounds," he says on his website. His latest album, Into the Void, with contributions from John Zakoor, features 11 songs that have BIG SYNTHS. I'm not sure what that means in the technical sense, but his keyboard sounds are all really broad, dreamy, and textured. It's the sonic embodiment of large fluffy clouds—with beats. The overall effect is kinda like soulful new age music, or new age soul. Spa music for wide-vista road trips.

Cedar Bend, "Green Copper" 
With the great Ann Arbor band Kingfisher renaming itself Racing Mount Pleasant after much of the group moved to Chicago, who is my next big local chamber-pop obsession? I'm guessing it's Cedar Bend. We've received just one song each of the past three years from this U-Mich collective, but the new "Green Copper" could portend a full album is on the way. Guitars, bass, and drums are at its core, but Cedar Bend layers its sound with horns, keyboards, and strings that envelop your senses. "Green Copper" has a loose structure that plays with dynamics and textures more than hooks, sweeping you along with its grand vision.

Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.